Family History

Civil Registration - births, marriages and deaths

Civil registration, the system still used today to record births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales, began on 1 July 1837. Each register office keeps certificates for its own local area while the Office of National Statistics keeps copies for England and Wales. The registers are not available for public consultation but it is possible to purchase copies of the certificates from the Office of National Statistics or from the local register office for the area where the event was registered. Certificates for births, marriages or deaths registered in Westminster, St Marylebone or Paddington are available from Westminster Register Office. 

If you do not have enough information to write off for a certificate then you can visit Westminster Archives Centre to consult the General Register Office indexes to births, deaths and marriages in England & Wales, 1837-1975 free of charge in our search room.

The following web sites are also indexing the births, marriages and deaths indexes:
FreeBMD is an ongoing volunteer project to make the General Register Office birth, marriage and death indexes available for free on the Internet

1837online enables you to search the entire copy of indexes of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales from 1837 to the current day for a fee.

An alternative is to search the original parish registers for baptisms, marriages and burials held by Westminster Archives. Information Sheet 5 – Registration Districts (PDF file) details which Anglican churches fall within which Westminster, St Marylebone and Paddington Registration Districts.